Caffeine

Just under a week ago some of my family got together for brunch to celebrate my mother’s birthday and the new year. As we congregated in my aunt’s living room to begin the day, I noticed that six out of the eight people had cups of coffee in hand.

The looks on their faces as they lowered their mouths and tipped their cups back were of a relief comparable to that of hearing a sick loved one does not have the feared, fatal disease. They would look down at their cup and mutter, “I love my coffee,” or some comparable phrase, and continue to sip until their cup was drained, at which point most of them promptly got refills. I do not think most people truly observe a coffee addicts behavior, see how a person’s day is so starkly changed upon that first cup.

I am not writing this to condemn caffeine addicts, to make a moral judgment. I only write this to describe the situation because of how ridiculous the double standard in our country is. When discussing this with my mother, she even hesitated to use the word ‘addiction’ to refer to caffeine addiction, instead saying “I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to need to have your morning cup of coffee.” And when people do use the word ‘addiction,’ ‘addict,’ etc. to refer to coffee, it's more in the sense that you can be addicted to cookies or a TV show. But caffeine is physically addicting in a way beyond how cookies, TV, or anything can be psychologically addicting.

And caffeine addiction is much more debilitating than addiction to many illegal drugs; just observe caffeine addicts. Many with strong addictions cannot function adequately without their fix. There are people who mope around, eyes half shut, unable to complete basic tasks – driving, conversing normally, focusing on work and so on – without drinking coffee. Simply, a lack of caffeine can be incapacitating to a caffeine addict's normal functioning. “In North America, 90% of adults consume caffeine daily” according to a Richard Lovett article. While not all of these people will have as strong a reaction to a lack of caffeine as described above, millions of them do. Again, I am not passing judgment; I am merely painting the picture as it really is.

And the picture as I see it is that caffeine – a potentially debilitating substance which is consumed in a debilitating manner by millions of Americans – is perfectly socially acceptable and most importantly is acceptable by the lawmakers in our country. Caffeine, a substance incredibly more physically addicting than marijuana (if marijuana is physically addicting at all) is legal despite these facts. I am not here to outline the ways in marijuana, cocaine, etc. are not nearly as bad for you as advertised – there are scientists who can and have done that much better than I. But I sometimes find it hard to remain silent when I find yet another reason why our government is completely absurd and irrational and should not be blindly trusted for moral guidance. Caffeine is life-altering on a daily basis; addicts need to consume it to function as a normal human being, and the government is perfectly fine with this despite its stance on other comparable drugs (and I'm being generous to caffeine to describe it as comparable).

Many of our laws create ridiculous, unfounded double standards, and through the lens of our governments stance on drugs we can see how arbitrary and irrational government can be. I cannot help but feel outraged that the consumption of much better and much less dangerous drugs are illegal while caffeine is paraded around in front of my face.